Okay that's cool If you want to say the 3sal cances out the 3loop, and the 3axel/2toe cancels out the 3lutz and the 3axel cancel each other out. (Okay) But Yu-na does a double axel/3toe, and Mao does nothing to cancel THAT out.

:lol: I know I say this and do get that everything else Mao did to cancel out Yu-na was more difficult I do get that the 3axel/2toe is harder and the 3axel is harder than a 3liutz).. But I'm still sort of trying to make a point that Mao by making the jumping layout she chooses, doesn't really benefit from the triple axels the way she should. I will totally agree that in the end Mao's program is harder. But because Mao is missing a lot of technical stuff that the other ladies are doing, she gives up a lot of points...

Even if Mao were to leave out her 3lutz. But do a 3axel and a 3flip/3loop and a 3flip/3toe like she did in 2008, I have a feeling that the judges would actually be a bit more impressed with that because Mao's showing that she can master all kinds of different tricks.....Not just one. All I'm saying is that its like since Mao left Arturian and became world champ. Mao has decided to put all of her eggs in the 3axel basket and essentially let everything else stagnant.

Well to compare it again, other ladies do triple-triple combinations and double axel-triple toe combinations while no one else on the planet can do two triple axels

Mao should never have went to Tarasova and I agree that she has put too much focus on the axels. I wish she would return to her beautiful music choices, light skating, and choreography because that suited her so wonderfully. It sounds like she is planning on staying around so I hope she makes some changes and goes back to what was so successful for her.

Yuna had a fantastic free skate - but I am not as involved in her long programs as I am in her short programs. I do think she was very much overscored here but she undoubtedly deserved her gold medal! It was a very beautiful skate. Her short program was so much more magnificent though!

Again, you can apply this to Yuna. She couldn't even land a single triple loop cleanly and to be fair Mao's toe pick got stuck in the ice while totally threw her off going into that jump.

If you watch Newyork TIme's coverage of Yuna that was shot few months ago during Yuna's media day in Toronto, she does one of the best triple loop. It was also shown in various practices last season that she is able to land clean Triple loop with height and flow.

However, she said it is not one of her best jumps and it tends to get away from her during the competition when she's under pressure. For Mao, it's not the pressure, it's the technial flaws so I would say it is a totally different thing.

When Elvis was discussing about Quad before the Men's competition on CTV I thought he was making a reasonable argument (although he did say anything other than quad is just garnish...) but now he's just ridiculous lol Maybe he's saying all that stuff becasue when he was a competitor he had quads but not the other qualities. To me, tech was very generous on Mao's 3A because both were more than 1/4 turn underrotated but she got away with it because she's the only one who's performning it. I think it was really unfair for Rachael flatt because
her 3flip didn't look any more UR than Mao's 3As.

If you watch Newyork TIme's coverage of Yuna that was shot few months ago during Yuna's media day in Toronto, she does one of the best triple loop. It was also shown in various practices last season that she is able to land clean Triple loop with height and flow.

However, she said it is not one of her best jumps and it tends to get away from her during the competition when she's under pressure. For Mao, it's not the pressure, it's the technial flaws so I would say it is a totally different thing.

There are plenty of practice clips where Mao lands all five triples, and Mao landed all five triples in competition last season. So by your own reasoning, Mao doesn't have any technical flaws. If anything, as Yuna hasn't landed a loop in competition in what, two seasons? it is more legit to say that Yuna suffers from technical flaws.

There are plenty of practice clips where Mao lands all five triples, and Mao landed all five triples in competition last season. So by your own reasoning, Mao doesn't have any technical flaws. If anything, as Yuna hasn't landed a loop in competition in what, two seasons? it is more legit to say that Yuna suffers from technical flaws.

There's six triples if you have the Axel, so which one did you count out?

BTW, how many women actually landed five different triples in Vancouver? In the 6.0 days it used to be almost a minimum requirement.

There's six triples if you have the Axel, so which one did you count out?

BTW, how many women actually landed five different triples in Vancouver? In the 6.0 days it used to be almost a minimum requirement.

Sorry, I stand corrected. I didn't originally include the axel in the count because that's triple and a half. If you include the axel, there are practices clips of her landing all six, and she has had all six ratified in competition as recently as last season.

If you watch Newyork TIme's coverage of Yuna that was shot few months ago during Yuna's media day in Toronto, she does one of the best triple loop. It was also shown in various practices last season that she is able to land clean Triple loop with height and flow.

However, she said it is not one of her best jumps and it tends to get away from her during the competition when she's under pressure. For Mao, it's not the pressure, it's the technial flaws so I would say it is a totally different thing.

well,actually if you see some coverrage of mao on youtube you can know that mao can land nice triple lz and salcow.

but it is riduculous that you think yu-na can land the best 3loop even if she can do it on the prctice.

you can say it only when she lands it on the competition under the pressure.

Sorry, I stand corrected. I didn't originally include the axel in the count because that's triple and a half. If you include the axel, there are practices clips of her landing all six, and she has had all six ratified in competition as recently as last season.

What is everyone's definition of "having" jumps? I define it as being able to do it in competition. Yu-na doesn't have the 3L at the moment, nor does she have the 3A. Mao doesn't have a 3-3, a 3S or a 3Lz. If they incoporate those elements once again, then they have it. What use is it to be able to execute a jump in practice when it's not good enough to deliver in competiton? People said Mao doesn't do a 3-3 in fear of DGs and a 3Lz because of edge calls. That means she can't do them because they're flawed and she needs to work on them, which basically means she doesn't have them. I don't know what the argument's about. She could have them in the future. At the moment, she doesn't.

Technically, Mao has the upper-hand, definitely, as she has two 3As in her program, but the fact of the matter is that she failed to deliver. Yu-na had a 3Lz-3T, 3F, 2A-2T-2L, 2A-3T, 3S, 3Lz and a 2A. Mao did a 3A, 3A-2T, 3F-2L, 3L, 3F< (2F) -2L-2L, 3T< (1T) and a 2A. In total, Yu-na did 6 triples. Mao did two triples and two 3As. Are two 3As really worth four triples and more? Elvis is basing his judgment not on Mao's layout or what she can really do, but on the actual LP performances. That's why people are arguing that his judgment on technical difficulty is unfair. He takes a myopic approach, which is why I really can't take him seriously, although I agree with the gist of his argument. He doesn't look at the other parts of the programs -- just that Yu-na did a 3-3 and Mao did two 3As and uses this to reason that Mao's score's being lower than Yu-na's is unfair. Yu-na was overscored, yes, but Mao's score is not so absurdly low when you consider the actual performance. She should've received better GOE, perhaps, but her score shouldn't jump to the 140, 150 range just because she has two 3As when the rest of her performance was flawed. She made mistakes. Elvis should've acknowledged that in making his judgment. And really, how much higher should Mao's score have been when you consider the fact that she got a 131.72 when Joannie got a 131.28 with 7 triples and Mirai got a 126.39 with one of the best performances of the night? If there is an argument anywhere, it's that Yu-na was overscored (which I agree with). I don't see how else the argument should proceed.

It seems to me that the only way out of this scoring dilemma is to have a different scale of values for men and for women. The argument is that only a handful of women have ever landed the triple Axel, and therefore this element should be more highly valued.

(If we really want to shout "wuzrobbed," Ludmilla Nelidina landed 3A plus five other triples at 2002 Skate America, but only finished fifth.)

Anyway, we do not think that Evan Lysacek was underscored for his two triple-Axel program. Right now the triple Axel has base value 2.2 points higher than the next hardest triple, the triple Lutz. Maybe this should be increased to, say, three points higher for ladies.

But no matter what the base value of the triple Axel is pegged at, the way for a lady to take advantage of having this skill is to do everything else and a triple Axel. If you do a triple Axel instead of doing something else, then the extra points are not going to amount to all that much no matter what the scoring system is.

But no matter what the base value of the triple Axel is pegged at, the way for a lady to take advantage of having this skill is to do everything else and a triple Axel. If you do a triple Axel instead of doing something else, then the extra points are not going to amount to all that much no matter what the scoring system is.

You're right. No matter how much higher the base point of a triple-axel would be, the skater would still need other triples to be competitive, though one less probably than those who can't do a triple-axel would need.

What increasing the value of the triple-axel will do is that other skaters who can't do a triple-axel will not be able to make up for their jumping deficiency by using double-axel jump passes against triple-axel jumpers. This is what I have been griping on about the whole time, so just increasing the value of the triple-axel might do the trick.

Not always but pretty often in these technical discussions people tend to refer to triple-triple combinations versus the triple axel without often specifying a PARTICULAR 3-3 combination, but of course each 3-3 has a different degree of difficulty. This has been mentioned some, of course, but not always.

If any statistician fans want to look up the specific numbers, that would be great, but I'd be very happy for people to just give me whatever they can quickly recall: How many ladies have done the 3lz-3t in competition? That was Kristi's combo, wasn't it? Who else?
What other triple-triples have been done by women, and roughly how common? I already mentioned I recall Tara's big move was the 3lo-3lo which I thought had a really neat look, I love the edge jumps ... what other 3-3 are particularly memorable?

And who are our triple axel ladies? Ito, Harding, didn't Meissner have at least one ratified in comp?, I had not heard of the lady Mathman mentioned, but that's another, now Mighty Mao, who else? ... just trying to get a rough idea.

Thanks, Bennett, maybe just to make it easier for the current discussion how about only 3lz-3other combos (not sequences), since lz is the next hardest jump after axel ... so that would be Kristi, Miki, Yuna, Shiz, and maybe Irina we've got so far. That's the same # as the 3a group, at least as to the informal and limited data so far.

Thanks, Bennett, maybe just to make it easier for the current discussion how about only 3lz-3other combos (not sequences), since lz is the next hardest jump after axel ... so that would be Kristi, Miki, Yuna, Shiz, and maybe Irina we've got so far. That's the same # as the 3a group, at least as to the informal and limited data so far.

It's not a complete list as I don't know many skaters. Also the gap in the difficulty between Flip and Lutz are not as large as Lutz and Axel. Another point to make is that equivalent comparisons would be 3Z vs 3A, 3Z-2T vs. 3A-2T, and 3Z-3T vs 3A-3T.